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Gordon honored as Clemente Award nominee

Gordon honored as Clemente Award nominee

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Alex Gordon

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KANSAS CITY -- Left fielder Alex Gordon is the Royals' nominee for the 2012 Roberto Clemente Award.

Gordon is one of 30 club finalists for the Award, which recognizes a Major Leaguer who best represents the game of baseball through positive contributions on and off the field, including sportsmanship and community involvement.

He was recognized before the Royals' game against the White Sox on Tuesday, established as Roberto Clemente Day by MLB. The Hall of Fame outfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates died on New Year's Eve, 1972, in a plane crash while trying to deliver supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.

Gordon said he shares the Award with his wife, Jamie.

"It's really a wife-and-husband deal. She doesn't get most of the credit but she does a lot of the work, so it's a family award. She does more than I do," Gordon said. "We're happy to receive it, glad that people notice it and very honored to accept it."

Since his rookie season in 2007, Gordon has supported the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation to raise funds to fight childhood cancer. The foundation is named for Alexandra "Alex" Scott, a Connecticut girl who not only battled childhood cancer until her death at age 8 but raised money for "her hospital" by operating a lemonade stand.

Gordon has attended the foundation's events, invited children diagnosed with cancer to the ballpark and visited children in hospitals. The Royals and stadium concessionaire Aramark are donating a portion of the proceeds from lemonade sales to the effort.

"It made sense because of the name, I did a couple of promotions with it and as the years went by, I got more involved. I hope to stay with it and continue to do more for them," Gordon said.

Award sponsor Chevrolet will make a donation to Alex's Lemonade Stand in Gordon's name.

Gordon and his wife also got behind the Diamond Dawgs, a 12-and-under baseball team that wore pink jerseys to raise awareness for breast cancer after two team members lost their mothers to cancer. They held a Playing for Pink Casino Night in Lincoln, Neb., last November that raised more than $120,000, half of which went to the American Cancer Society, the other half to the team for a tournament at Cooperstown, N.Y., a trip one of the deceased mothers told doctors she wanted to live long enough to see her son take.

Fans can help select the national award winner by voting for one of the 30 nominees at MLB.com/ClementeAward. Participating fans will be automatically registered for a chance to win a trip to the 2012 World Series. Voting ends at 10:59 p.m. CT on Sunday, Oct. 14. The winner of the fan poll will receive one vote among those cast by a selection panel.